


Maybe There Is Fate.

by neo_the_neon_light



Category: Persona 5
Genre: (essentially), Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, New Game Plus, Reincarnation, Repeating Events, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 12:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neo_the_neon_light/pseuds/neo_the_neon_light
Summary: It started with a hand written recipe for curry and coffee.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 83





	Maybe There Is Fate.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what spurred me to write this. Mayyyybe this has been done before? I dunno. But yeah! Thanks for reading.

He was only a child when the first paper appeared. Six… maybe seven?  
  


He remembers sitting in his bedroom, the flowery pink walls and curtains put up by his parents making his eyes tired. His mother called him, and he’d gone to get up, when he’d toddled past a slightly fluttering piece of paper on top of his dresser. Grabbing onto it with grubby hands revealed a recipe Ren couldn’t quite understand at that age.  
  


When he’d showed it to his mother, she’d looked at it with questioning eyes, before asking his father how on earth their daughter had a recipe for curry and coffee from the cafe his coworker frequented. Ren had just looked up at the two, wondering why his paper had been taken away.  
  


In the end, they decided to let him keep it. He’d stowed it in a pencil box he’d bought for his first year in elementary, and kept it with him all year, showing it to everyone, who thought he was a weirdo for being so proud of a coffee recipe.  
  


On his eighth birthday, when Ren blew out the candles and wished he could outrun all the boys in physical education, a mysterious present appeared on the gifts table. It didn’t have a label on it, but when he opened it, there was a plain, black watch. It was far too big to fit on his wrist, and when his parents asked friends and family who gave it to him, they were met with equal confusion.  
  


It was a nice watch-- but it was too small for his father, and his mother said it “wasn’t suited for her”. They were ready to sell it, but the day they were going to leave for the appraisal, Ren threw a tantrum so large they were forced to stay home and ask what had caused the fit in the first place.  
  


They let him keep the watch after much grumbling from his father about financial troubles. Ren had gently set it in the same pencil box, ( now not in use, ) as the curry/coffee recipe.  
  


When he was nine, he cut his hair into a curly bob with a pair of scissors he’d snagged from the kitchen. As he was getting admonished by his parents, there was a scratching sound at the door. When his mother got up to check it, a scruffy tabby cat came breezing around the kitchen island, snagging a yellow scarf on the leg of Ren’s chair before running back the way it came, yowling all the way.  
  


His mother was a lot less keen on keeping the cloth, because god knows where it’d been-- As he grew older, Ren reasoned that to be logical, however the nine year old child refused. He clung to that scarf until it began tearing- that was when his mother finally agreed to wash it and give it to him.

He wore it his entire fourth year of elementary school, thinking it might bring him luck. Such a bright yellow fabric only brought confusion and some light teasing. The day before he started his fifth year, he took the watch and paper out of the pencil box and wrapped them in the scarf, neat and tidy. They all seemed to fit together; an odd little set with no discernible connection other than their mystery.  
  


When Ren was ten years old, going on eleven, he’d saved up enough to buy a single gallon of light blue paint, the color of the sea hitting the shore, and a paintbrush. He’d proceeded to paint all over the pink on his walls, uncaring with what he hit-- until he neared the yellow scarf: only then was he delicate with his painting. His father monitored his progress, only getting called away when a delivery truck came with a package. It was addressed to their home, but had no return address.  
  


When him and his father opened it, ( his mother was off at work, ) a painting was revealed. Dark reds and blacks bordered the edges, while a bright white circle overtook the center. It was accented with an elegant wooden frame, and Ren and his father were so in awe, that they went up and hung it in the hallway immediately. It didn’t fit there, though, so when Ren finished painting his room, he moved the painting into an empty spot on his wall where there had once been a butterfly decoration. Underneath it, he hung the yellow scarf on a nail, where it safely cradled the other items.  
  


On his eleventh birthday, he traveled to the city with his mother. To Shibuya, somewhere he’d never been. He learned he didn’t like it right away, as the noise around him swirled and mixed and stabbed into his ears until he was stuck to his mother’s side. She scolded him, finding it “unbecoming of a growing girl,” but allowed him to do it anyways.  
  


They were crossing the street when they heard the tires screech behind them. Ren had turned around to see a woman getting struck by a car. He didn’t see much more than that before his mother had covered his eyes, screaming.

Faintly, he also heard the screams of a girl who could’ve been the same age as him. 

_If we’d been a second slower, that could’ve been me and my mother,_ He’d thought, as she’d grabbed his hand and ran.  
  


As he was being dragged, a piece of paper flitted down from the sky, along with a few shards of broken glass. With his free hand, he reached to grab it.

It was a small piece of lined notebook paper, scribbled with a highschooler’s handwriting.  
  


“My Promise List,” It read. It was crumpled and shoved into his pocket before he could read any more.

When they’d returned home, his mother was in distress from the event they’d witnessed. Ren simply silently trodden upstairs and stowed the crumpled list into the yellow scarf. He wasn’t even aware of why he’d stowed these items away.  
  


When Ren turned twelve, his father got into a horrible car accident. He was very badly injured, and it was the fault of the other driver. He’d received an injury lawyer’s business card while Ren was visiting him in the hospital. Their talk went completely over his head, he was more worried about his father’s wellbeing. 

What didn’t go unnoticed, was the fact that when the lawyer left, his father now had two cards. One had the name of the lawyer that was just in the room, the other was a “Sae Nijima.” His father didn’t know who that was, but the last name Nijima reminded him of the police officer who’d called an ambulance for him. Ren’s father threw away the unneeded card, but Ren had soon gone through the trash to find it again. When he went home that day, for the first time since he’d gotten the scarf, he unhooked it from the wall and unwrapped it.   
  


Something told him to put this business card with the other objects, but why? What did these objects have in common?

He read over the recipe page, now able to understand it. It was signed by Sojiro Sakura. Reading the name sent a warm, happy feeling through him, but why? It felt comparable to his father telling him “you’re okay,” in order to comfort him.  
  


The watch he’d gotten for his birthday now slipped onto his wrist like it’d belonged there his whole life. It was still a little too big, but Ren liked the way it looked. He tried to see if it might’ve had a connection to Sojiro, from the recipe, but nothing on the watch indicated that it had been used or worn before he’d gotten it four years ago.   
  


The scarf had no identification to it, although it was still stretched out from when his mother and him had gotten into a tug of war match over it. There was cat hair on it, even though Ren swore that the one who’d carried the scarf had orange hair, not black and white.  
  


When he looked at the painting again, It was signed with a scribble, and he could faintly make out the english letters “YK.” He could only assume that the artist wasn’t related to Sojiro, and yet the letters gave him the same feeling as reading the previous name.  
  


The crumpled list he’d snagged from the sky had been faded. It was written in pencil, save for the pen written **TO DO** ’s, and the way he’d haphazardly shoved it into his pocket that day had worn the lettering down.

What he could make out read the following:

“My Promise List. Th_nks to Ren for hel__ng ou_!”

“TO DO: F__ce a _arge __owd.”

“TO DO: __an_ So__ro for _he __rry.”

“TO DO: G_ to _hikaba_a by _yself.”

“TO DO: V_sit m_m’s gra_e.”

“Once I’ve d_ne a_l of t_is, I c_n fina__y cons__der myself a f_nc_ioning m_mber of s_ciety!”  
  


Ren had to wonder if the smudged out So__ro was Sojiro. That would connect those two pieces of paper, but nothing else. Even then, as uncommon as the name Sojiro was, it could always be a different person. He also didn’t know who the list was thanking, this “Ren” person, but something about the name made him smile. He liked that name.  
  


Then there was Sae Nijima’s card. It listed their name and that they were a lawyer, along with a phone number. Finally, Ren had a line where he could ask questions. Perhaps this lawyer could help him figure out why he had all these items.

Using the phone he’d gotten for his birthday, he dialed the number. It was eight at night, but surely, lawyers must work later than bedtime, he’d reasoned.  
  


He was met with a dial tone. The line didn’t exist at all. Frustrated, he’d set his phone down and wrapped all of the items back up, including the watch and card. It was hung back up underneath YK’s painting and ignored as Ren fell asleep that night.  
  


On the winter of the year he turned thirteen, just before going on winter break, he was walking the halls of his middle school. He was quiet, watching his classmates make a fuss because a limousine had pulled in front of the school.

“Ren!” ( he’d asked his friends to start calling him that, after the mystery promise list person, ) “Ren, come look! There’s the CEO of Big Bang Burger!”  
  


The title didn’t really interest him, but his friend had grabbed his wrist and dragged him to the entrance of school. At the gate stood the principal of the school discussing something about a sponsorship to a man with plain black hair and glasses. Clung to his side was a high schooler, with dark pink hair that curled around her head.   
  


Whatever his principal had been talking to him about, the CEO didn’t seem too interested. He turned to leave, bringing the girl with him. The principal had sighed and turned away. Only a simple disruption to a school day. Seeing a limousine was nice.  
  


However, when he went to leave school that day, he noticed a frilly pink handkerchief stuck to a bush. When he grabbed it, he knew immediately that it was the girl older than him who was accompanying the CEO that morning. His daughter maybe? Who knew? It was stained with coffee, and had the name “Haru” embroidered in its lower corner.

Ren didn’t want to keep it, he really didn’t, but who was he to go find the CEO of a fast food burger joint? Most of its locations were in Tokyo anyways, and he wasn’t keen on traveling back there. So when he returned home, he folded it neatly and set it into the yellow scarf, more out of instinct at this point.  
  


No odd coincidence happened when he was fourteen. He collected mail for his parents every day, observed the items and people passing him by the street, but nothing dropped into his hands. The only notable item he'd received was a magazine from his mother, claiming it could give him "fashion tips." On the cover was a young woman with blonde hair in thick pigtails. Something in him made him think that maybe this was the item he was to receive, so he laid it gently on the floor underneath the scarf, and never opened it otherwise. The thought of a fashion magazine upset him, at that point, having to dress like the people inside.

Maybe it was truly a coincidence that he’d come across all these items.  
  


When he entered his first year of high school, there was an event for the school festival. His high school held it a lot later than most other schools, so several other schools were invited to come visit. A prep school in Tokyo happened to come down for a visit. Shujin Academy.

Of course, Ren wasn’t paying much attention to the students who came, but he’d bumped into a girl in the hallways, a second year. He’d apologized profusely, but the girl was leaving and didn’t have too much time to respond.

It wasn’t until after she left that he’d noticed the calculator on the hallway floor. It wasn’t very high tech, but he still held onto it. Another place he’d have to visit in Tokyo, great.  
  


It was only a few days after his sixteenth birthday, that the incident happened.


End file.
